Intermountain Power Plant


Intermountain Power Plant is a large coal-fired power plant at Delta, Utah, USA. It has an installed capacity of 1,900 MW, is owned by the Intermountain Power Agency, and is operated by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power.
The power plant consists of two units each with a generation capacity of 950 MW. Generating units are equipped with
General Electric tandem compound steam turbines and Babcock & Wilcox subcritical boilers.
The boiler houses of Intermountain Power Plant are and the flue gas stack is tall. The HVDC Intermountain transmission line runs between Intermountain Power Plant and Adelanto Converter Station in Adelanto, California.
Construction on the plant began in September 1981. Commercial operation of unit 1 started in June 1986, and unit 2 in May 1987. The project cost US$4.5 billion. The plant was originally designed for four units; however, only two units were built. In 2004, units 1 and 2 were uprated. These works were conducted by GE and Alstom. The Intermountain Power Agency planned to build the third unit of 900 MW capacity. This unit was expected to go online in 2012; however, the project was cancelled after its major purchaser, the city of Los Angeles, decided to become coal-free by 2020.
On December 28, 2011, one of the generators failed causing the shut-down of one unit for several months.

Conversion to natural gas

The plant is scheduled to be converted to natural gas by 2025 at a cost of $500 million, and LADWP plans further conversions to a blend of 30% hydrogen and 70% methane.